Let also give recognitions to Tangedyn, Katarn, and Barawr for helping me updating the Bear Guild.

Also, thank you to those that contributed to the Bear Guide and will keep contributing. This guide is a collection of many people's contributions. If you feel like adding up to it, or correcting any wrong data, just hit reply. I will make sure the information is updated and is correct.

Since the patch 4.0.0 came out many things were change: Gems, Enchantment, Glyphs, Rotation and even Talents. I will update all the changes from 4.0.0 toward all the major points for tanking as a Druid Bear. We will continue to focus on stats, talents, glyphs, rotation and mechanics designed to develop the tanking skill of Bear druids in 4.0.0+. I have grab couple key-points from Arel00’s Guide and Infernix17’s Guide then carry them over to this guide.
II: | Bear Form |

Pre 4.0.0: There was two different Bear Forms: Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. When 4.0.0 came out both forms merge as one: Bear Form. Dire Bear Form will upgrade the Bear Form at lvl 40 without having to learn a new spell. The spell cost 5% of base mana and it is instant cast.

Shapeshift into bear form, armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 65% (120% at lvl 40+), and Stamina by 10%. Significantly increases threat generation, causes Agility to increase attack power, and also protects the caster from Polymorph effects and allows the use of various bear abilities.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of movement slowing effects.

Harder to control when Mind Control due to the Polymorph Immunity (Stun, Cyclone, Roots, and Blind will work)

Damage taken from AoE tanking is generally higher than other tanks due to the poor scaling of SD.

No range silence spells

Weak AoE threat generation

III: | Bear Stats |

Bear Stats are important to tanking. These stats help you control threat, and survive hard-hitting mobs.
Agility:This is one of the major stats for Bear Druid. Agility deals with both threat and survival.

Critical Strike:Critical Strike pays a major role in Survival as well as being a threat stat. Each time you deal a critical strike while in Bear Form, you “could” gain a buff called Savage Defense, which does reducing the damage taken from the next attack, more about Savage Defense latter in the guide.

Increases your chance to proc Savage Defense.

Code:

179.28 Critical Strike rating = 1% Critical Strike

Dodge:Dodge is the bears only “real” Defensive stat, since we can't block or parry with our claws.

When you do dodge an attack, you would not waste Savage Defense, it will be use if you do get hit or the timer went up.

Code:

176.71899 Dodge rating = 1% Dodge before DR

Expertise:Expertise lowers the enemy's change to parry and dodge.

Dodge Cap, is called "Expertise soft cap", and is set at 26 Expertise.

Parry Cap, "Expertise hard cap", is at 56 Expertise

Bosses’ mechanic called parry-haste; parry-haste can greatly improve the boss damage output, endangering the life of the tank. However all the Cataclysm bosses’ have their parry-haste mechanic turn off. (Will list the bosses if they do have the parry-haste)

Like always, Savage Defense only takes 1 hit, so whether it is a 500 dot tick, 1,000 aura tick or 40k hit, Savage Defense will fade after. It is a little bit RNG based as it can be wasted with a 400 dot tick or sometimes save your life when it absorbs a 60k hit.

Savage Defender does not get destroy by one hit, it will set up a set number base on how high your critical attack. The damages taken will take some part of that defense. Bosses can or will remove the Savage Defense without a problem. This was fix to solve the AOE problem that Bear seem to have.

Code:

179.28 Mastery rating = 1 Mastery

Stamina:This stats boost our health, the higher the stamina the longer we last until a heal.

LacerateLacerates the enemy target, dealing (3608 + (AP * 0.0766)) damage and making them bleed for (5 * (69 + (AP * 0.00512))) damage over 15 sec, and causing a high amount of threat. Damage increased by attack power. This effect stacks up to 3 times on the same target. (lvl 85)Lacerate has been changed to only stack 3 times and the Lacerate Dot is bad now, Lacerate(non dot) does an insane amount of damage and you should be pulverizing every 10-15 seconds, so make sure you always have 3 stacks of Lacerate on the target.The only good thing about the Lacerate DoT is that it gives you a 30% chance to refresh the cooldown of Mangle.
MangleMangle the target for 260% normal damage plus 774 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 1 min.Mangle is your second strongest hitting ability and needs to be kept on CD at all times.
MaulAn attack that instantly deals (7 + AP*0.264) damage. Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Maul damage. 3 second cooldown.Maul has been changed to have a 3 second cooldown rather than "on next attack."Macro everything to maul, because it is still off the GCD. **See "XIII Macro" for more information. SwipeSwipe nearby enemies, inflicting 143 + (AP*0.114) damage.Swipe now has a 3 second Cooldown.
Survival InstinctsReduces all damage taken by 60% for 12 sec. Only use-able while in Bear Form or Cat Form.Exactly like warriors "Shield Wall" ability.

PulverizeDeals 80% weapon damage plus additional 150 damage for each of your Lacerate applications on the target, and increases your melee critical strike chance by 3% for each Lacerate application consumed for 10 sec.Used every 10-15 seconds.Make sure to have 3 stacks of Lacerate up before using it.Must be kept up as the 9% crit is huge for our threat and Mastery.
Skull BashYou charge and skull bash the target, interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 5 sec.Extremely useful for picking up casters.It will not miss.

VII: | Gears |

Each ones show you a link to the BiS List at that ilvl, since it is easier to upgrade the BiS list from there.

[Grounded Plasma Shield]: Allowing you to activate a powerful shield that absorbs 16200 to 19800 damages. There is a side effect when it does not work, which give you a debuff called “Plasma Misfire!” that give “Painful Shock” which then delivers an extremely painful static shock to all enemies within 40 yards. The shock does no damage, but will taunt all targets to attack you for 4 sec. (Engineering only)

Well, Bear stat allocation is incredibly unique. Not just in that we use DPS gear, but everysinglestat we use helps our defense in some way, however minor it may be. There is a hierarchy that needs to kept in mind, but it basically means we can change a couple stats around to get our desired effect. I, personally, focus on Bear DPS, so I have more expertise. Others are wanting to focus on their DPS in both forms, so their focus is mastery, expertise and crit. Both of these gearing strategies cater to different playstyles, yet don’t gimp us so much as to render us helpless. Well, so long as your focus isn’t Haste. Like I said… time and place. Haste is neither here nor there for Bears.

Those of you that are afraid to stray from the dodge paradigm, don’t be. It won’t be the end of the world when you take more damage, and you will, because the increase will be quite minor. Cataclysm tanking, while still about surviving, is more about reacting to the mechanics, using your CDs when you need to and learning the encounter. It’s not at all the Wrath paradigm of “if you don’t have the HP to survive two hits, you’ll die”. If this isn’t apparent, then just look at all the different tanks strewn across the progression front. Every single boss has been killed by every single gearing strategy. Full stam, some stam, full mitigation, full CTC (combat table coverage), full agi, and even full DPS gear for DKs and Druids. Aside from the DPS gear part, all of those strategies will have been used during progression.

It is great read by Reesi and I do hope that we could end the argument.

I will agree with Reesi since everything have been use during progression.

[Grounded Plasma Shield]: Allowing you to activate a powerful shield that absorbs 16200 to 19800 damages. There is a side effect when it does not work, which give you a debuff called “Plasma Misfire!” that gives “Painful Shock” which then delivers an extremely painful static shock to all enemies within 40 yards. The shock does no damage, but will taunt all targets to attack you for 4 sec.

[Synapse Springs]: Allowing you to find your highest attribute (Agility) and increase it by 480. Gloves can only be activated once every minute. No side effect known yet.

[Quickflip Deflection Plates]: Allowing you to increase your armor by 1500 for 12 sec. Gloves can only be activated once every minute. No side effect known yet.

Lifeblood (Rank 8): Heals for 4% of your health instantly and then grants 480 haste ratings for 20 second. It can be critical.

Profession Combo:

Many Bear tanks choose these one of the crafting profession+Jewelcrafter: Jewelcrafter/Scribe, Jewelcrafter/Leatherworker, Jewelcrafter/Blacksmith, or Jewelcrafter/Enchanter, due to the high Stamina or high Agility:
Jewelcrafter/Scribe:

For reforging, the only course of action is reforging the least wanted stat into Dodge Rating.

This is the best support for survivability, while simultaneously keeping our avoidance above the plate tanks.
The Reforge priority is as follows, from least wanted to most wanted:

Haste < Hit / Expertise (if beyond soft cap) < Crit < Mastery

XI: | Macros | Maul is still off the GCD, it just no longer happens on next attack.The reason most won't work is because you will have ranks posted in the code. You can rebuilt the macros using the abilities directly out of the spellbook. Warning you can get rage starve using this macro in heroic dungeon, raid is a different story. #showtooltip/cast (spell name)/cast !Maul

XII: | Priority System/AoE Tanking | The Full Priority System would look like: Enrage > Berserk > FFF > Demo Roar > Mangle > Thrash > Laceratex3 > Pulverize > Lacerate x1 > Mangle/Thrash > Laceratex3 > PulverizeOnly use FFF at the start and if you are waiting for a Lacerate tick and everything else is on CD.Keep up Demoralizing Roar, use every 30 seconds between Mangle and Thrash. (Extra time on Lacerate won't hurt at all.)Use Enrage if needed.If you are having threat issues pop berserk otherwise pop it if needed.When you get a free mangle from the Berserk Proc throw it in first and then move on.AOE: (will be updating) Yes, we now have some pretty bad AoE tanking, although there are many ways around it. Here is a really good rotation you should use. Swipe > Thrash > Mangle >Laceratex1 **>** Swipe > Thrash > Mangle > Laceratzex1 **>** Swipe > Thrash > Mangle > Laceratex1 **Tab Target** You are really going to have to Tab Target, Thorns is going to help keep some good initial aggro, although in time you will have to apply some more. If you do it correctly, you won't have any AoE problems.
XIII: | Addons | TBA
XIV: | FAQ | TBA

Bigger Health Pool -- I'm not really sure that's true these days. Generally, we have *less* health than other tanks, but we also take less damage to compensate for that.
Immune to Polymorph Effects -- We also have Snare removal on a GCD as well.
Weakness -- Damage taken from AoE tanking is generally higher than other tanks due to the poor scaling of SD. Also, we have much less "control" over mobs, especially casters. (No ranged silence.)
Maul-macroing -- generally not an issue for hard hitters (raid bosses etc), but it can easily starve rage generation in heroics. It can also (unintentionally) deal damage to nearby mobs if glyphed, possibly breaking CCs.

Bigger Health Pool -- I'm not really sure that's true these days. Generally, we have *less* health than other tanks, but we also take less damage to compensate for that.

If you take a look at the other tanking class and how they gem, you would find that they are gemming more stamina than we are. If we did do the same thing as them, we would have a little more health, not much. "less damage to compensate" is for parry and block.

Originally Posted by ponens

Immune to Polymorph Effects -- We also have Snare removal on a GCD as well.

Is there a boss that snare the tanks? There are couple bosses that would polymorph the tank.

Originally Posted by ponens

Weakness -- Damage taken from AoE tanking is generally higher than other tanks due to the poor scaling of SD. Also, we have much less "control" over mobs, especially casters. (No ranged silence.)

I agree with that.

Originally Posted by ponens

Maul-macroing -- generally not an issue for hard hitters (raid bosses etc), but it can easily starve rage generation in heroics. It can also (unintentionally) deal damage to nearby mobs if glyphed, possibly breaking CCs.

I could add a warning for that macro since it is easily to get rage starve.

Is there a boss that snare the tanks? There are couple bosses that would polymorph the tank.

I can't think of any (Cataclysm-relevant) bosses that would polymorph tanks either. Snares, I can only think of Nezir if you somehow get stuck in the ice with too many stacks.

In general, I think your guide is great as a "quick reference", but I would really appreciate if you can fill in some details and justifications why XYZ is the best talent/glyph/stat as opposed to UVW (especially on the part with the Agi vs Stam). If that's not your intent, you could also link to some more detailed websites that fill in that info. Thanks for volunteering to make the new bear guide.

Addendum: Speaking about macros, I would also suggest: " /cancelaura Enrage /use Enrage " (hit the macro twice in succession get 20 rage without getting +10% damage taken, or hit it once just for the Enrage at risk of +10% damage taken).

I can't think of any (Cataclysm-relevant) bosses that would polymorph tanks either. Snares, I can only think of Nezir if you somehow get stuck in the ice with too many stacks.

In general, I think your guide is great as a "quick reference", but I would really appreciate if you can fill in some details and justifications why XYZ is the best talent/glyph/stat as opposed to UVW (especially on the part with the Agi vs Stam). If that's not your intent, you could also link to some more detailed websites that fill in that info. Thanks for volunteering to make the new bear guide.

The reason why I did not do best talent/glyph/stat is because every-time we get buff or nerf, the "best" get change.

Another reason why I am not doing the Agi VS Stamina is because it created too much drama.

I like the idea of "do you have enough health to not get two shot, if so then gem agility."

You are right about the Shapeshifting removing slow effect. Will be fix soon.

---------- Post added 2011-03-14 at 08:14 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Ession

I would definitely add the rebirth glyph as a recommendation.
Also under macros I would add powershift.

It is there, I just need to fix something. Coded cause both FF and the Rebirth to merge and it is fix.

Hit and Expertise are definitely not "just threat stats". They equal out to more savage defense procs due to a two roll system. In 359 ilvl and higher gear, expertise soft cap is actually more mitigation than critical strike.

I do not recommend macroing maul into anything, especially not everything. This leads to rage starvation, and thus less attacks being put out, and thus less savage defense procs.

Also, I recommend adding in Glyph of Maul for major glyphs, as it is pretty much main stream in usage.

Hit and Expertise are definitely not "just threat stats". They equal out to more savage defense procs due to a two roll system. In 359 ilvl and higher gear, expertise soft cap is actually more mitigation than critical strike.

Let me ask you a question, would you reforge your Haste, Mastery, or Crit to hit/expertise and not dodge?

If the answer is no, then I was right about Hit and Expertise being threat stats.

If yes, then you do know that Skull Bash does not need hit stats any more.

None of the bosses have parry-haste, therefore expertise soft cap is a waste at the moment.

Savage Defense is heavy deal with critical strike. "Great, i did a critical strike, but it did not proc savage defense."

Savage Defense need high Crit and a lucky roll, 50% chance.

It does look great on paper but because of the second RNG, Savage Defense need to be 100% chance to proc on crit to make Hit and Expertise more useful.

Two roll system is guesstimate created by EJ. We just have to wait until blizzard said it is a two roll system.

My point was that hit and expertise mean hitting the boss more, which means more chances to gain crits, and thus more chances to gain savage defense. You cannot write this guide thinking of expertise and hit as purely threat stats, because they are NOT purely threat stats, they add to our survival. Which is why, as I stated before, expertise is slightly better than critical strike rating in ~359 ilvl gear.

No bosses have parry haste, you are correct, I never brought it up because parry haste is completely irrelevant in this raiding tier. Soft expertise cap is purely better than crit due to landing more hits, and thus more crits, on the target.

My point was that hit and expertise mean hitting the boss more, which means more chances to gain crits, and thus more chances to gain savage defense. You cannot write this guide thinking of expertise and hit as purely threat stats, because they are NOT purely threat stats, they add to our survival. Which is why, as I stated before, expertise is slightly better than critical strike rating in ~359 ilvl gear.

No bosses have parry haste, you are correct, I never brought it up because parry haste is completely irrelevant in this raiding tier. Soft expertise cap is purely better than crit due to landing more hits, and thus more crits, on the target.

Maybe so, but you have not answer my question.

Would you reforge your Haste, Mastery, or Crit to hit/expertise and not dodge?

Now it is the battle for Reforge.

Everything for Bear does effect its survival, how much depend on the person.

All the bear do agree that Haste is useless until blizzard can think of something.

First 5 second of the fight is hit and expertise problems.

After that timer is up, we have great threat control.

You need to understand that savage defense is a three system roll type.

Do we hit the target? Yes or No
Is the attack critical? Yes or No
Does that critical Attack proc savage defense? Yes or No

What are you asking, Mystile, is that should we gems or enchanted our gears to increase the up time for our savage defense?

I do agree that we should reach the cap but not by giving up our survival stats. If you want more DPS, you have to give up survival stats same thing happen reverse.

We will never get 0% Hit or 0 Expertise. Our gears will not let us have that.

Reesi's gears for an example has 0.99% hit chance and 5 Expertise. She has 10/13 heroic done. Hit and Expertise are not needed at the moment.

The only time you would need hit cap and Expertise soft cap is for heroic dungeon.

If you feel that you need better hit chance and Expertise, go ahead. I am not going to called you bad if you do take that approach.

I reforge my gear into dodge. The greater majority of my gear is crit mastery, this means I reforge the crit out and into dodge. One piece is hit mastery, I reforge the hit into dodge. One piece is expertise mastery, I reforge the expertise into dodge.

As bears we have the ill fate of always having to reforge something in our gear (at least in this raiding tier where dodge DR is no concern.) No matter what dodge and mastery are our best two stats, leather gear cannot have dodge on it due to excessive random itemized items, hence why relics are always bought from vendors, and not drops (post Ulduar.)

I have .92% hit in my gear, and two expertise. Until yesterday, I did, in fact, have ZERO expertise. I held a pretty steady 35k tps after the first few seconds of a fight (where I have tricks/md anyway) and threat is a joke from that point on. Expertise and hit are worthless in terms of threat, but expertise soft cap is still better than crit in appropriate gear.

Not once did I say we should be gemming for expertise or hit, this whole time I have only been trying to prove my point of expertise and hit not being only threat stats, as they add to our survival.

Again, I am not propagating that hit and expertise are something to aim for, simply that you are incorrect in stating they are "purely for threat" when expertise is equal to, if not better, than critical strike rating at the appropriate gear level.

I reforge my gear into dodge. The greater majority of my gear is crit mastery, this means I reforge the crit out and into dodge. One piece is hit mastery, I reforge the hit into dodge. One piece is expertise mastery, I reforge the expertise into dodge.

As bears we have the ill fate of always having to reforge something in our gear (at least in this raiding tier where dodge DR is no concern.) No matter what dodge and mastery are our best two stats, leather gear cannot have dodge on it due to excessive random itemized items, hence why relics are always bought from vendors, and not drops (post Ulduar.)

I have .92% hit in my gear, and two expertise. Until yesterday, I did, in fact, have ZERO expertise. I held a pretty steady 35k tps after the first few seconds of a fight (where I have tricks/md anyway) and threat is a joke from that point on. Expertise and hit are worthless in terms of threat, but expertise soft cap is still better than crit in appropriate gear.

Not once did I say we should be gemming for expertise or hit, this whole time I have only been trying to prove my point of expertise and hit not being only threat stats, as they add to our survival.

Again, I am not propagating that hit and expertise are something to aim for, simply that you are incorrect in stating they are "purely for threat" when expertise is equal to, if not better, than critical strike rating at the appropriate gear level.

You just want me to said that hit and expertise are not a threat stats because in your word, it help the uptime of savage defense. I do agree however their role is threat with a bonus.

If you have a problem with threat, and everyone tell you to get more hit and/or expertise to control that threat problem. They see those two stats as threat stats.

How about this i just remove they are "purely threat stats" for you.

I do want to know what appropriate gear level when expertise is better than crit.

Good improvements, a comment to go with the armor section, the multiplied armor is base armor on your leather/cloak. Doesn't effect a huge number of things anymore but does a few.

Base armor on all of these items as well as base agility/stam are EXACT item level scaling, item level is the only thing effecting the armor agi and stamina on these items, everything else is secondary stats and gemming/trinkets.

I'll re-iterate that the only thing that scales armor and basic agi/stam is item level and trinket choice.

Mystile makes a fair point. Haste, expertise and hit may be primarily threat stats, but they do contribute to damage reduction too albeit indirectly, and definitely warrants a mention especially for the case of expertise.

It may not look like it matters, since we are going to reforge out of these stats anyway, but given a choice of a Mastery/Crit against a Mastery/Expertise gear, I would take the Mastery/Expertise gear. The difference in damage reduction value between Expertise and Critical Strike is very small, but when it comes to threat generation, Expertise Rating gives at least 3x more threat than Critical Strike Rating.

At the moment it doesn't really matter since there is only one Mastery/Expertise piece in the whole tier, but who knows what we'll see next tier.